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VI UPDATE U.S. Virgin Islands Public Records TRANSCRIPT OF PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS Committee of the Whol Legislature USVI March 13, 2026 · 0.7 hours · gov Source recording https://youtu.be/6O5-V4vqazY Status This is a working transcript produced by machine from a recording of a public proceeding. It is a finding aid, not an official record of the Legislature. Transcribed by VI Update, using OpenAI Whisper large-v3-turbo, run locally. Not reviewed by a person. Reliability Automatic transcription, UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording before relying on it. Speech recognition splits spoken digits and wraps figures mid-number, so a dollar amount, a vote count or a bill number can be wrong in a way that reads as correct. Speakers are not identified: automatic speaker labelling was measured unusable and removed. 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No permission is needed, and none is ours to grant or withhold. block city future development in that area because i'm trying to think of what would go there that would make sense after that you know so you know that's something that the planners need to to think about more okay one minute um in reference to bill number three six zero two seven one uh mr woods the green space that's shown on the um the illustration what is the future use of that portion of it what's the intended future use uh john woods uh no no development plans specifically for that green space other than the expansion of uh the cars that will be housed on the site so it would be so it'll become additional parking area for future vehicles okay so it'll probably not be any green space is that what you're saying well it's it's it's green now because we haven't we haven't really designated a use for it yet so it's potentially gonna be just one big flat parking lot yeah right right next to the government parking lot north of it time yeah all right um and one other thing this is a flood zone correct it is yeah so um right across the street it might impede the the flow of additional waters into the gut right there uh no the buildings that will be located have to be elevated above the uh the flood plain elevation so they they have to be elevated about four to five feet above the existing grade yeah i figured that um is there any way is there a runoff on the west in the western side of this property that's gonna you know channel the water away from the other property 0:00:00 well a storm dr right now if you if you go and look at a site that it doesn't have much met much in the way of buildings on it and the the pavement is all gravel which ultimately is is a previous surface that absorbs any storm waters on it the structures themselves are fairly small right now so as required by any any substantial planning we will have to um provide storm drainage measures uh so that uh off-site water pollution will not be uh impacted by the site i think my time is called thank you very much thank you very much uh senator frederick senator kala joseph you're recognized for your three minutes thank you so much mr chairman a pleasant good day to everyone um i really can't ask any questions relative to bill 36-0270 which would be changing the r3 zoning to public for plus 11-f and 11-g estate penitentiary land uh because the representatives from the department of health are not here i don't know what has caused that i know 0:02:19 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 1 of 6 Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whol definitely the commissioner is usually very much in attendance and so i definitely wanted to ask some questions relative to this plot uh but let me ask you miss laplace matthew is this for this particular is it just to get this portion of property in conformity to be public because it's going to be used for public what what what the use was uh historically for this property historically it was multi-family housing and so now it's going to be used permanently for the office and the lab okay the multi-family housing was owned by the virgin islands housing authority correct it was the raf de chabert housing committee so it was public in quote-unquote uh use okay so is it okay so i have a little bit of a sense on that but i definitely would love and would have appreciated the opportunity to ask the commissioner some questions now let's move on to bill number 36-0271 uh mr plas kindly indicate for us what uses are permitted as a matter of right in the b1 zoning it's a mixed-use zone so it allows residential business um some semi-commercial uses so commercial like what yeah bars and restaurants yes yes okay so how close in vicinity is this property to the residential area so what about what about uh this res this uh parcel 0:04:17 so the immediate abutters are business uses but it does have some warehousing the government public parking lot there's another parking lot there's a seaplane and then further past the seaplane you have the ruby rouse housing community how close is the ruby rouse housing community to this uh parcel 30 seconds it is over 300 300 feet over 300 feet 300 feet i do have some concern because um we we are having some even though uh i understand what mr woods is saying there's nothing that will prevent them in the future from changing what uh the applicant has indicated they would like to use it for why why didn't you consider a variance for just this uh property to carry out that use was that considered a variance so that we could really have them conform to what they are proposing um our use parents was considered however being that it's within the historic district and the next of next closest zone is the b1 and the b1 is a mixed use a mixed use the r3 is also mixed use um it allows for bars and restaurants but they would have had to be an accessory to um a hotel or apartment complex so they're somewhat similar but keeping with the intent of the historic district we determined that the b1 was the most appropriate okay and the notification i don't know if my time was called uh it was senator but you can wrap up okay thank you um so the notification for the hearings went out to 0:06:13 those individuals even in the ruby rouse complex did notification go to those residents in that area since it's about 300 feet your state in the notification by code is to 150 foot radius so those property owners within the 150 foot okay so nothing went out to with to them because they are not within that radius it would have been to the property owner so to um housing authority or vihfa whoever owned the property and you sent notice to them yes we do have the listing showing vihfa okay thank you so much uh mr chairman i do have some concerns regarding that zoning thank you thank you very much senator joseph i wanted to ask you because i think the previous the previous uh rezonings i think the feedback that we had gotten from you mr plaz matthew was that there was no pushback or no no uh objections to i think either of the last two uh i noticed that one of the hearings was scheduled for the 29th of december that was in my mind i was on the 29th of december a couple days before all years is that really an ideal time if you really want to maximize um attendance wouldn't wouldn't it be more appropriate to have a date where more persons are likely to show up that was just a thought that came to my mind thank you for the question senator so our hearings are asynchronous meaning that the files are available prior to the hearing then we do record the hearings and then we give a public comment period so that the recording and the file can be reviewed to catch any and everybody whether they were able to attend or even if they 0:08:05 don't live on island that's good to know that's really good to know but do they know that are they aware that they can access that information even if they don't show up live or not particularly yes senator so when we um do the public notification of the hearings and the applic the whoever registers we send them a registration that gives all the details of the application and you know how they can view it excellent thank you for that mr laplaz matthews senator novelle francis you are recognized for your three minutes uh thank you very much mr chairman and good afternoon to everyone good afternoon the evolution of time so i was born in charles howard hospital i live in shabbat building 30 apartment 70. i went to head start i heard my colleague talk about kindergarten i went to head start in this um in this area as well you know so the evolution of time things happen 11f estate penitentiary and 11g estate penitentiary i is the lab currently operational in that um at that facility no senator why not what's happening there they required a zoning change in order to be operational okay and once that happens then what happens there then they're operational there's still some additional work that needs to be done no once they receive the zoning change then they can get a certificate of occupancy to become operational 0:09:59 okay and is there any residential structure in close proximity to the lab at this time the closest yes they do have some residential within the 150 foot radius and have you spoken to those residents in our location we did have um communication with yeah some residents when they got the public hearing notification what was the feedback um they were simply concerned about the lab like what type of lab it was have you been able to fulfill their concerns yes senator and what happened after that they were okay with it or they still have some oppositions um we didn't get any you know post hearing comments so the understanding is they're okay with it okay and moving on to the other property you said 0:11:45 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 2 of 6 Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whol there was no opposition to the proposal there correct senator and you had proper notification and everything else there yes senator all right and um are you aware of what's the historical preservation requirement that the facility will have to go through no i'm not aware um i'd have to defer to mr woods so what's well specifically any any improvement within the historic preservation commission districts you have to make an application to them uh whether it be just to put up fencing temporary structures prominent structures uh they review and and um and and then provide you with comments and eventually approval for a while real quickly for my time right now i'll stop you there right before my time right now what i'll see is that one one second mr woods so would stop there um because my time is about to run out i heard you talk about um the wash down area in that uh facility can you speak to what is what is the intention uh in terms of the wash down area and whether or not there will be any water containment um as a result of this wash down well what is going to be used for is as you know with a with the rental cars they they're not going to be repairing vehicles there they but they're going to to clean them once they they they they're brought back in so that the new renters um will have a a clean vehicle so no mechanical no maintenance of vehicles no mechanical or garage will be done at that location time no and what will be the the containment of the water because of course that's a flood area what is what is being done to address the water that will be utilized for the wash wash down well presently um it drains into the soil however uh when we apply for a more permanent uh structure on the site and drainage it will have to be contained before and and uh separated so no oils are able to go into the soil okay and uh my time has been called but if you could just answer on the chair's time i wanted to get um if you could just paint a picture of what permanency um means in that particular area with the two buildings that's currently in place what does what will the permanency look like the permanency will well you can see the buildings right now historic preservation we have to clad the buildings with architectural treatments that will be more in compliant with the district than simply uh what you see there right now one 0:13:34 the one uh building that is a long narrow building has to be moved um to the eastern side of the property so that um it and so that it fulfills a relationship that historic preservation would like to see uh with regards to um its relationship to the street nearby so the buildings are going to be overhauled and um will likely end up putting up uh a false roof over it as well either hip or gable that is still being um looked at uh thank you very much senator francis thank you for your comments mr woods senator clifford joseph you may now proceed with your three minutes thank you mr chair good afternoon to the listening public good afternoon to my colleague good afternoon to everyone in the room um this question well first of all we're here to discuss on block two bill number 360270 an act rezoning plot number 11f and 11g estate penetrant land company quarters in croix from r3 to medium density public don't you think um possibly this is government property and this should have already been zoned public yes senator so within the corrections okay this this put this one in the correct zone simply but what i'm trying to get to is if we have more property like this i think we should just go ahead and try and get everything 0:15:44 out of the way so we don't have to be meeting over for stuff that should have done been passed i have a few questions for the department of health and they're not here so they're going to leave me a little area as far as what's going to be in the lab because it's all about safety and at the end of the day it's close to the shore shoreline and you're putting a lab down there i want to make sure what's what would they be storing in the lab public lab or not as i move on to bill number 36 0271 um an accurate zoning plot number 31 b 32 b 34 c a 34 c c a a and 34 c b for strand street what kind of impact this will have on the the properties nearby being that the residential property nearby is this going to change the tax base or what would this do if this zoning go through the tax um tax your tax rate is actually based on your use not on your zoning and the zoning for this property it's it's a multi-use zone currently and the proposal to be one is another multi-use zone it's just the difference in the development provisions and the table of permitted uses but they're both multi-use one minute um okay so you're saying it wouldn't it wouldn't affect the nearby residents who might have been right out of the zone correct okay uh and you guys put in consideration the traffic i mean yeah we set enough for parking but we setting up for sure to change the zone for the mix to allow the rental car company now to 0:17:36 have this complete but did you in the studies make sure that the um implementation of the traffic coming through christian said um there would be no changes um it's the same use it's really just for legal purposes for them to operate say when the lease expires they can operate independently of another entity okay thank you for your response thank you mr sir for the time thank you very much senator joseph senator joseph center colleges if you recognize your point of information thank you um mr chairman i had a question regarding um one of my colleagues just to follow up uh bill 36 dash 0271 is it your understanding mr woods that you can conduct uh repairs automobile repairs with this zoning i'm not sure i'm not sure of all the uses in that zone okay so if you see i can i suppose that's i can you can right you can conduct automobile it could be a automobile garage as well and that would be as of right should we vote in favor of this rezoning today miss laplace is that correct yes senator thank you thank you very much senator carla joseph senator ray fonseca you're recognized for your three minutes okay okay then we'll move to senator marvin blighton you're recognized for your three minutes senator thank you so much mr shea good afternoon again to my colleagues good afternoon testifiers 0:19:31 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 3 of 6 Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whol and thank you thank you again for your testimonies i'm in respect to bill number three six or zero two seven zero um of course i know the department of health is not here but i do have questions for them but at the same time though i was really wondering in terms of going from r3 to public and of course once we turn into public that's opportunity for grants and my question to them would be how many grant opportunities we have lost because it's not labeled as p that's my only statement on that bill but we'll have that discussion at another time and in respect to bill number three six zero two seven one um good afternoon mr woods i like what i saw in the rendering it looked real nice it's an upgrade in my opinion for the area but my question is you said it's a matter of right um in terms of that this um or gravel can i not doing no no right now it's gravel okay so how will you be able to contain the water so it does not go back into the soil that you stated and what type of catchment will you have or what does that look like speakers well the it would likely be what they call an oil separator and it would you put it in by the watch station so it contains any or any uh any of those types of um products that come off of the vehicles but ultimately all you know we're doing right now is washing dirt off of the cars unless i understand that and um i used to watch car that a young boy growing up one of my first jobs and many times there are oil and other stuff and other products on the car also even though you're washing dirt but i understand what you're saying so um i look forward to having discussion before um i vote on this bill with um those individuals and i'll do so on a personal basis thank you so much for your testimony thank you responses thank you um mr chair for the time thank you very much senator blyton senator avery lewis you're recognized for your three minutes thank you um i really didn't have much questions but mr laplass as it pertains to the 0:21:42 current in proximity to the neighbors and so forth you know i heard the previous speaker talk about dirt with basically washing dirt but with that dirt comes smut and break dust and all kind of things do we have a existing aquifer in that area anything um there is flooding um it is waterfront so there is um that consideration that has to be taken in when they do the the conversion to the permanent conversion to permanent so your dpnr will be asking them to concrete and put a catchment or something because it's important yes whatever appropriate measures for that um area they will have to implement you know because a lot of times when we leave from here people do do what they want let's just be cut through the chase the bottom of my road go open a car rental less noise more noise than anything no problem we have noise what about the fumes you know let's take all of that into consideration we have neighbors you know dpnr you're the entity i see you stop less than enough for other people so we're going to make sure they do the right thing and you know we're going to put our foot down today so this thing about we're just washing dot noise more than not coming out the car when if you let them go all over with the tires them it's a car rental if the man could save a dollar and change the brakes in the yard he gonna do that the man who save a dollar and service the car them they gonna do it tell us up front yes i'm gonna do the minor repairs you know now that i'm against the project for progress but just tell me what going on be up front if you know what you're saying you're just smiling and telling me nothing i agree senator and that comes into the permitting part of the process 0:23:56 okay man make me feel better man thank you thank you mr chairman lewis thank you very much mr woods i wanted to i know i kind of briefly asked you about the anticipated changes in light of the the rezoning and you said there wasn't any anticipated changes um in light of the zoning upgrade but i wanted to just ask you you and the owners do you anticipate just futuristically do you anticipate future expansion of services example tour operations additional vehicle classes ancillary retail on these plots uh well obviously senator that will all be a business decision uh when that would occur but i i believe uh there's nothing specific at this time than operating this business as its own entity without being tied to another entity uh you know certainly opening it to future development that'll always that'll always be there but there's no nothing intended for that i think i should um point out real quickly if you don't mind um obviously they are operating on this site right now and initially what they're operating on uh in in essence a temporary uh facility permit and in order to turn it to a more permanent uh permit they'll have to go through what miss laplace has alluded to uh getting final building permits that will be tied to um the storm drainage requirements regarding disposal of of of uh storm drainage and and so forth understood thank you uh mr plaza matthew what specific attributes of this location led you led you to determine that b1 rather than the requested b2 will be necessary in order to maintain the historical and commercial character of christian stead's business center thank you senator so it's with being within the historic district as well as the proximity to the b1 zone right and uh mr what's my final question really i know you're interacting with the historic historic preservation and what have you decided or have you and a historic preservation group have you been talking about specific designs and signage and lighting treatments that are proposed to ensure that the parental operation complements the whole historic character of christians that town 0:25:46 yes to all of the above uh senator and it's a it's a discussion that is that is ongoing uh we did make some initial modifications to what what was uh initially approved for these temporary facilities uh based upon a presentation to the historic preservation commission and um you know final approval of those those changes are still uh underway okay fair enough thank you very much mr woods point of information senator college joseph thank you so much mr chairman mr 0:29:28 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 4 of 6 Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whol plaza matthew kindly indicate for us if uh this particular rezoning for bill number 36 dash zero two seven one will be in conformity of the comprehensive land and water use plan the that we passed yes senator it would be this map the map do you have a map of the the area that it applies to no we do not have maps what we have is the current zoning map so with the comprehensive land and water use plan what we have is the policy and so future mapping will occur but what we have is the policy yeah okay thank you so that yes that goes to my concern because we should have a map um regarding uh what we had voted on also for the comprehensive land and water use plan thank you so much uh mr chairman thank you very much senator kala j joseph senator kenneth gettens you're recognized for your three minutes thank you uh mr cheer and good afternoon to all the uh dpnr how how does being within the um historic district uh impact this particular project so it's it would more come with the permitting phase where prior to building permits they would have to get the historic commission approval first so and that's it that's what it's limited to well also in terms of which zone would be most appropriate being like within the historic district um the first zone that you would look at would be the b1 being that the intent was to preserve and maintain the historic districts okay and the current operation currently serves only the uh hotel patrons correct correct senator so will this rezoning be open up to the general public once it's rezoned the rezoning could allow for them to yes open up to other clients oh okay and has dpnr done uh have you analyzed whether increased commercial um activity will create additional traffic congestion or parking issues in this area the analysis was done um being that it is currently operating as a car rental it's just you know changing for legal purposes um the leasing the traffic impact we didn't determine that there would be much change plus there's the government parking lot right next door and there's another parking lot nearby okay all right that's the only thing i think i had with that um and your response with the historic district impact was a bit general but uh we'll see how it goes from there thank you for your response thank you senator gittins yes yes laplaz do you have any closing remarks 30 seconds on this 2 260271 and 260270 thank you so um again i appreciate the opportunity to present on these two bills um they also represent the comprehensive land and water water use plan being adopted and we have to start shifting to long-range planning um we have to look at our current zoning to see if it's still appropriate we know that our zoning code has been in existence from since 1972 some estates have seen major changes and so we would need to do some mass rezonings we also have to look at our table of permitted uses 1972 again many many updates 0:31:44 needed with needed with our uses and our development provisions so again staffing funding needed to be able to fully accomplish the comprehensive plan all right thank you it's crossing 270 at the same time i just wanted to ask you if we have any idea if there's any more government properties that need to be rezoned uh to be in compliance at this time yes senator we do have many many many many so so you have a full listing we do have the listing from dpp property property property and procurement we are working on it's 100 pages so we're we are going through it to determine all of those that are not appropriately zoned but a plan does need to be laid out we need to be able to look at it from a comprehensive standpoint not just the zoning but also the table of permitted uses for the p public zone thank you thank you mr chair thank you senator gettons point of information senator lewis thank you mr chairman this laplace matri based on what you said you said you have a listing or property if you come and have a listing they shared their listing with me they shared their listing with you right yes good so you'll help them get the package together we will try with our limited staff good but with the limited staff and what you have already let them to know that i ain't taking no government property from away from the government for the government to have to rent so we're rezoning we're rezoning for the government thank you thank you senator lewis colleagues we've exhausted our round of questioning for testifiers 0:34:38 so i'm going to ask the testifiers uh miss laplace and mr woods to provide us with their oh she did i'm sorry i'm sorry so we will officially stand in recess oh mr mr woods you may proceed with your 30 second wrap-up sorry closing thank you thank you senator um thank you for the opportunity to present this our rezoning request today uh there were a couple uh questions raised which i will uh provide answers to you once i confer with my client particularly as it relates to the the wash down of vehicles and um and and also the lease and its relationship to this rezoning thank you thank you very much mr woods colleagues the committee of the whole such meeting for monday march 16 2026 stands in recess for five minutes for five minutes so so so so so so so so so so so you so you you that you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you 0:36:33 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 5 of 6 Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whol Bills and acts referred to Matched by number against our own acts corpus. The number is what the recognition heard, so it may be wrong; where it resolved, the title is the one the Legislature gave the act. Referred to but not found in our acts corpus: Bill 36-0270, Bill 36-0271 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 6 of 6